Wildania Brito
Course Self-Reflection
This has been an exciting and long journey, I don’t even know where to begin. Wait, of course I do. The English class of food, history, and society was the first actual course I added on my college schedule not only because it had the word food in it but because I loved history. I thought I had an idea of how this class would be, about what I was going to learn but I was completely wrong. I never expected to learn so many different and new concepts in just one class and I was most definitely not expecting to have two professors either. How ever, as the course went along I realized it was not as bad as I had originally thought, having two professors can give me a better chance to understand a topic or expand a notion. Since the beginning of the course, we were assigned to express our strengths and weaknesses. I found this task one of the most difficult tasks ever assigned to me, which might have been the hardest one for me. But this assignment was the foundation I needed in order to continue through this very long journey.
I knew exactly what my strengths were and I was always outspoken about them. I loved writing and reading, it was my favorite two things ever. My strengths came in handy a bunch of times in class, for example, my ability to correctly use transition words and the ability to organize my thoughts and my writing. These two strengths came in handy whenever we had to write essays in class. I not only exercised these strengths myself but helped others struggling with those two qualities, this way I made new friends. The day we were placed in our permanent group I was skeptical about how it would turn out, I did not enjoy working with other people, this was one of my weaknesses, but it was a requirement for this class. We soon realized that many of our strengths were other group members’ weaknesses, this helped us so much. Turned out we are not only peers but friends, we developed a close relationship and help each other out on any assignment or issue we were having as we are all college freshmen.
The first time I was ever exposed to course learning outcomes was with this class. I was aware that these were qualities that helped one become a better writer but I did not know there was a name for them. I tried to exercise all of these sections throughout the course but I believe no one really knew how much we used them. Unknowingly I used all of these outcomes and I realized this after I wrote self-reflection essays. Analyzing different genres and rhetorical situations became a strength for me, drafting and editing were done so frequently I had to do them in order to organize my thoughts. Engaging in the social aspects of the writing process was done every time we had an online discussion board which also goes with the outcome of peer editing. Locating research sources and critically analyzing them was a must for two of the most difficult assignments in class. I learned how to properly research, analyze documents and articles, create draft outlines, so much more.
To conclude, I believe this class was the best introduction possible so we freshmen get a feeling of what our lives will be like for the next four years. I grew so much with this course, there are things I would and would not do again because of this class. My strengths were enhanced and my weaknesses became working progress, I made really close friends, I built a relationship with my teacher, but most of all I learned a great lot. I learned to never give up, to keep asking questions, and that college life was not going to get any easier. It was an awesome but tough experience, without this course I would not be able to develop the strength and knowledge I now have after taking this class.
